III.II.I Epochs

The mechanism practically operates in 30-day epochs, meaning in the standard operating procedure proposals are only passed on a 30-day cycle. In practice, this broader epoch is split into two epochs of 15 days. These numbers were chosen to align with an average calendar month.

The first epoch (the Transfer Epoch) is a non-voting period where transfers and delegation are enabled. The second 15-day epoch (the Voting Epoch) is where voting takes place on Standard Proposals and transfers and delegation are disabled. These restrictions on on-chain activity only apply to POWER tokens, there are no restrictions placed on the ZERO token.

The conceptual 30-day epoch is split into these two smaller epochs to ensure correct accounting for voting and inflation. This means that proposals are collected in one 15-day epoch (whether it be the Voting Epoch or the Transfer Epoch), are voted on in the following 15-day Voting Epoch, and should be executed in the following 15-day Transfer Epoch. Proposals that passed but were not executed eventually expire. Therefore a proposal may spend as short as 15 days plus two blocks, or as long as 45 days, from submission to execution. During the 15-day Transfer Epoch, holders may transfer their balances, reassign delegations, and purchase POWER that is being auctioned.